


Breathe in, Breathe Out

by MintSauce



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 02:44:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based around my one-shot on Tumblr: Until The World Smells Like Chocolate which was based on a song/the tags by jeffrosenstock. Listen to the song Chocolate by the 1975. That one-shot is chapter 2. </p><p>I can't really think of a description at the moment: but it's an Ian and Mickey runaway fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my lovely beta Michelle for editing and Billie for helping me with the storyline/reading the first chapter to tell me if it's worth posting.

It was just breathe in, breathe out.

It was just this suspended moment of time where Mickey was just standing there looking down the barrel of a gun at his father. He didn’t know if he’d finally cracked, or if this was just the moment when he was seeing everything clearly for the first time, that he was seeing all of his options laid out before him. And he knew what they were now; maybe he’d always known but just hadn’t wanted to see them.

And out of all of Mickey’s choices, he chose to _live_. But maybe before anything else, he chose Ian Gallagher, because every time he blinked the only thing that he could picture was that look on Ian’s face right before Mickey had hit him. It was all he could see and he’d tried to wash away the image with vodka and whisky, but in some fucked up way that had only managed to make him feel more.

So there he was, looking down the barrel of a gun at his father, seeing the man’s mouth twist into a sneer as he spat out the words, “You ain’t gonna pull the trigger, who the fuck you fooling, you’re just a fucking little faggot.”

And Mickey just breathed in and breathed out and then he pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot was too loud and not loud enough all at once. Terry Milkovich hit the ground, sprawled, with red blooming up against his dirty shirt like a fucking flower rising out of the ground on fast forward. And Mickey just walked over, too calm, not feeling a fucking thing and pointed the gun at his father’s head, staring him dead in the eyes as he put a bullet in the middle of his forehead.

Because Mickey wasn’t above killing, he’d never been that innocent, had never been that good. He’d killed before, both by accident with hitting someone just a little too hard and for a little too long and completely intentionally. The only time he’d ever backed out was with Frank and that hadn’t been a case of being too chicken shit to do it, it had been because of that fucking look on Ian Gallagher’s face.

It was funny how it always seemed to come down to that look on Ian’s face.

He didn’t hang around, didn’t do any sentimental bullshit like stare down at his dead father and think about how things could have been if maybe the guy wasn’t such a sick fuck. No, it was the middle of the fucking day and nobody else was home, but Mickey didn’t know how the fuck long that was going to last, so he just did what he’d planned to do ever since he’d curled his fingers around the handle of that gun.

The gun that he tucked into the back of his trousers as he moved around his room like a goddam hurricane, throwing clothes into a ratty duffel bag, some of which he knew for a fact were Ian’s. He ripped up the loose floorboard that he stashed all of his drugs and money under and pushed that into the bag too and then he was gone.

He liked to think that it hadn’t been a pre-planned act, but the fact that he’d traded a shitty car for a load of coke three days before was evidence enough that he’d planned on at least leaving for that long. He didn’t know how long he’d been thinking about killing Terry.

Mickey hadn’t had a clue that he’d been driving in the direction of the Gallagher house until he got there, not until he’d parked his beaten up, rusted red car on the opposite side of the road and was banging his fist on the front door. He didn’t even having a fucking clue what he was going to say, didn’t know until Ian opened the door that he was going to be home.

The first thing that came out of his mouth at Ian’s surprised look was, “Come with me,” and he knew that didn’t make sense, but maybe the weight of the statement could be seen in his eyes, because there was this long frozen moment where Gallagher just looked at him.

“You can’t beat the shit out of me and then expect me to drop everything,” he said and something in Mickey’s chest fucking broke and ripped and he felt like he was about to be sick, but instead he just looked Gallagher dead in the eye and didn’t even blink.

“I know,” he told him, but see that was the thing wasn’t it. Mickey didn’t expect anything. He didn’t think Ian was going to come with him, he hadn’t even thought the guy was going to open the door. But maybe that was the point, maybe that was why he was here. Because what else did he have to lose? He was leaving, so was there really any point in being scared now? “I never promised you anything,” he said, his tone maybe just a little too brutal, but his throat felt raw like he’d been screaming for days, “You want things I can’t give you and I can’t promise it’ll be any fucking different outside of Chicago.”

And Mickey had everything to gain and nothing to lose, because if this was the last time that he was ever going to see Gallagher, he didn’t want to have to spend his life thinking that he’d always been too chicken shit to say just three little words. Even if they were words that felt like they contained the weight of the world.

So maybe that was why he just came out and said it, because at this point he couldn’t come up with a valid reason not to. “But I love you,” he said, not looking away from the way that Gallagher’s eyes went wide and his fingers curled around the doorframe like he needed to ground himself. Mickey didn’t know what it meant that despite his earlier statement, those words still tasted like a promise on the back of his tongue.

“You know that.”

And Gallagher did know that. He’d always known that. There had been no falter in the words when he’d said them to Mickey in front of that warehouse. “You love me and you’re gay.” It had never been Ian that they’d had to convince of either of those facts.

Maybe the problem had always been that in his head, Mickey had pictured those words being the beginning of some massive event. He’d always imagined that it would be such a big deal, that it would mean he’d have to change or do something. But Ian just nodding and looking at him, like Mickey had said those words a thousand times, that hadn’t been what Mickey had pictured at all.

A part of him had expected Ian to just surge forwards and kiss him at that moment and he told himself that he wasn’t disappointed at all when he didn’t. When all Ian did was take a step back, leaving the door open for Mickey in as much of an invitation as anything could ever be.

And then all of a sudden it was like everything was fast-forwarded, because they were upstairs stuffing Ian’s clothes into a bag and Mickey pretended not to see how Ian’s fingers were shaking as he put a picture of his family in there too.

“I killed Terry,” he confessed and Ian’s hands stilled on the zipper of his bag, but he didn’t say anything. He just reacted as he did before, nodding his head and looking at Mickey like none of this was anything of a surprise.

And maybe like Mickey, he was in some sort of shock. None of this had quite hit home yet, but it would later and maybe then they’d be clinging to each other in the dark, gasping and shaking under the weight of words and decisions that they couldn’t take back, not now. But right then, they were just moving on an autopilot that neither of them had programmed.

It almost felt like a dream and maybe Mickey would wake up later, arching up off the bed with sweat making his clothes stick to his skin, but that wasn’t something that he gave more than a passing thought. Because if this was a dream, then what the fuck was the point in worrying?

“We’re only doing this if you’re safe,” Mickey said, pressing the gun from the back of his trousers into Ian’s hand and looking at him seriously. And that could have been Mickey’s way of giving Ian this one last chance to back out, because this wasn’t going to be easy and it wasn’t going to be some walk in the park; but there was this childish, faggy part of Mickey that was clinging to the idea that so long as Ian was there, he’d find some way to make it alright.

Ian’s fingers curled over his around the gun and it was the first time they’d touched, the first time since Mickey’s foot had connected with Ian’s face. And it made something shatter inside of Mickey, something that only started putting itself back together again when Ian closed the distance and pressed his forehead against Mickey’s sweaty one.

And they just breathed. They just stood there and breathed in the same air, fingers curled around a gun and the future lay out before them, no matter how short it may be. They just breathed in, breathed out and paved their way with promises whispered in the silence between words they never said. 


	2. Until The World Smells Like Chocolate

They’ve been driving for almost eighteen hours straight and the look of Chicago in the rearview mirror is something that’s burned into Mickey’s eyelids whenever he blinks. But it’s a good sort of imagine, tinged with a little bitterness yes, but it’s accompanied by this liberating feeling.

Both of them had been wide awake for the first few hours, with Mickey driving with his foot almost flat against the floor whenever he can manage it just to put distance between them and Chicago. For those first few hours the fingers of Ian’s right hand are curled around the grip of Mickey’s gun, because that was their agreement. Mickey had just been planning on hightailing it out of town himself, but this was one time Ian’s wide eyes and the desperate look on his face had swayed him all the way, so he’d agreed that they could both do this, _together_ , but only if Ian was safe.

Mickey’s gun is stashed away in his backpack, which is behind his seat along with the duffel bag they’d stuffed full of a haphazard combination of both of their clothes.

Ian’s other hand is resting on his thigh, palm turned up and he keeps giving Mickey these sidelong glances like Mickey doesn’t have a fucking clue what Gallagher wants. But no, Mickey couldn’t have peeled his hands off their tight-knuckled grip on the steering wheel if he wanted to.

They don’t say a lot, not for the first while, but they don’t really need to, because Mickey knows that the weight of everything that happened and the uncertainty of what’s going to come are hanging over both of their heads. Because neither of them is stupid enough to think that it’ll all just stop at putting a bullet in Terry Milkovich’s brain. Maybe the cops won’t care as much as they should, but other people will.

Milkovich’s are big on family and they hate fags even more, so it’s a done deal really. Nothing to do but run. Course, Mickey bargains on it being a few hours before anyone even realises that Terry’s not breathing anymore, so they have that at least.

Nobody knows where they’re going. There was just two hastily scrawled, near identical notes left on Mandy’s pillow and the Gallagher’s kitchen table. _I’m safe, I’m sorry, I have to go, I love you. Watch your back._

Mickey’s not stupid enough to think that there won’t be the days when Gallagher is going to blame the hell out of him for taking him away from his family; because if family is important to the Milkovichs then it’s the only thing that has ever existed to the Gallaghers. And maybe it should be family before everything else, maybe it is; but Mickey knows that he’s never loved anything or anyone as much as he has loved Ian Gallagher. And it’s a burning, all-consuming sort of love that’s probably going to kill them both one day. If it hadn’t done already.

He doesn’t know how Gallagher ever believed a single fucking word that he said, even when Mickey was backing up his words with his fists; because how much he loves the redhead is something that he knows is written all over his fucking face half the time. And Mickey will do anything to keep his boyfriend safe, because yes, he will let himself secretly call Ian that in his head; and Gallagher’s not going to know that piece of information because Mickey is comfortable enough in his own skin to admit that he’s too far gone in love for Ian Gallagher, but he doesn’t quite want to face the implications of what being gay means.

A part of him knows he is, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Isn’t ready to admit it yet.

Maybe it’ll all be different when they’re somewhere safer, somewhere better than shitty Southside Chicago. Mickey doesn’t even know where they’re heading, hasn’t thought about it. He’s just been driving.

And they’re about five hours in and sitting in a long line of congested traffic on a road that Mickey couldn’t tell you what direction pointed in. All he knew was that Chicago was behind them. And he’s got that thought in his head when he realises that it’s not as quiet as he thought it was before in the car.

Because Ian’s fallen asleep with his head against the window, mouth open and snoring softly and all Mickey can do is stare. He looks stupidly innocent and stupidly beautiful when he has the light of the road shining off his skin like it is and it’s an image that Mickey wants to capture forever. It’s an image that he wants to see again and again because it’s just that damn perfect. And he doesn’t even care how faggy and stupid that sounds.

He can vaguely recognise the feeling curling inside of him as happiness and there’s a small smile on his face as he leans forwards and gently takes the gun out of Ian’s slack, sleepy grip. He puts it in the glovebox and smoothed his thumb over Ian’s knuckles lightly. The bruises on his face are turning a mottled yellow and green and the split in his lip has healed up well and Mickey still felt guilty, still felt horrible for doing that to Ian, but he has a lifetime now to try and make it up to him. And he’s going to, because it’s not like Mickey has anything else that he needs to be so concerned with anymore.

Ian jolts awake when a car horn sounds loudly behind them and a slow, lazy grin spreads across the redhead’s face. He looked content and as happy as Mickey feels and he doesn’t comment for once on the way that Mickey slots his fingers in the spaces between Ian’s own. He just leans forwards and fiddles with the dial on the radio until loud, cheerful music fills the car.

And it’s a band singing about petticoats and chocolate and never quitting and Mickey finds himself nodding his head to the beat and squeezing Ian’s fingers with his own. Because he can’t stop thinking about how if Ian was a drug then he’s far too addicted to even think about quitting by now, he doesn’t want to.

He catches himself trying to count Ian’s freckles out of the corner of his eye as they take turns fiddling with the radio for songs, thumping their fists against the dashboard when it sputters in and out. But it’s half-hearted, because neither of them can really find it in themselves to care about shitty car radios or anything really when the mood inside the car is swelling up in a way that makes Mickey’s cheeks hurt with the force that he’s smiling.

When they stop for gas, Mickey fills up the tank as Ian goes inside to pay and Gallagher climbs in behind the wheel before Mickey can so much as blink, arms laden with chocolate. It looked like Ian had bought out the entire stock of Snickers bars and Mickey grins at the sight of them, at the memories and feelings that flit through his brain and they eat chocolate until wrappers are bunched up in the foot-well by Mickey’s feet and he’s starting to feel a little sick, but it doesn’t stop him from lurching forwards and slamming his mouth against Ian’s.

They’ve got a gear stick between them and everything takes like Snickers bars and the car smells like chocolate, but it’s the best kiss that Mickey’s ever had. There’s the best feeling swelling in his chest as Ian’s fingers push into the back of his hair and he licks into Mickey’s mouth, biting at his lips until Mickey’s feeling too hot in his own skin and he just wants to press himself into Ian and never come out again.

But eventually they pull apart and Ian drives and they keep on messing with the radio until Mickey falls asleep against the window to the sound of Ian humming that first song under his breath. Mickey doesn’t dream of blood and pain and the sound of gunshots like he normally does, instead he dreams of the hot slide of flesh and wide shit-eating grins and the way he wants things to be; because even as he’s asleep he has his fingers curled in Ian’s almost too tight, neither of them wanting to be the one that lets go.

He comes to in a rest-stop far away from all other cars, when Ian’s mouth fits over his, blowing weed into his lungs and Mickey inhales out of reflex, fingers digging into the back of Ian’s neck and smoke blowing out of his nose like a bull as he turns it into a kiss. Ian laughs into his mouth, fingers coming up to tweak at his nipple until Mickey yelps, indignant and they pull apart.

They smoke joint after joint, until Mickey’s feeling lazy and weightless. When he breathes in through his nose he can’t tell if the car smells like chocolate or weed, because all he can think is that everything smells like Ian too. Gallagher’s scent is clinging to his clothes and the seats of his car and everything just feels fucking perfect.

And when he climbs into Ian’s lap, knocking his knee accidentally on the gearstick, he’s too high and too content to do anything more than just rest his hand against Ian’s chest to count his heartbeats and press open-mouthed kisses to Gallagher’s flesh. He knows when he wakes up he’s going to have the worst cramp in his legs and they’ll have to keep driving, because there’s never going to be enough distance between them and Chicago, but he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care because he’s never been so content in his entire life, but then that’s probably because nothing has ever quite felt this perfect to him before. 


	3. Chapter 3

It’s been two days and they’ve just been driving about in a roundabout way before pointing themselves in the direction of New York and deciding to stick to it. They’d been driving pretty much non-stop, one of them sleeping whilst the other drove and it had calmed something inside of Mickey, making him feel settled in a way that was wrong given that they were on the run.

They had the windows rolled right the way down, because the air both inside and outside of the car was hot and sticky in a way that made Mickey squirm in his skin. Ian had taken his shirt off sometime when Mickey had been asleep against the seat and his skin was shining with a faint sheen of sweat that Mickey wanted to taste. He wanted to run his tongue up the pale column of Ian’s throat and he’d been half hard with those thoughts in his head for a while now.

Something that Ian was all too aware of it the smirk on his face was anything to go by.

Mickey had one arm dangling out of the window, cigarette held between two fingers. He couldn’t help smiling around the filter despite himself as Ian turned the radio up load and started singing and bobbing his head along to the words. It was embarrassing and cringe worthy, but Mickey couldn’t find it in himself to shove at him to shut the fuck up.

They were stuck in a line of traffic, which didn’t bother either of them too much since they were about due to turn off for gas anyway.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he muttered, giving Ian a long sideways glance and flicking away the rest of his cigarette.

Gallagher just grinned at him, turning the radio down enough so that he didn’t have to raise his voice to be heard over the music when he said, “It’s too late now to want to back out of bringing me along.”

Mickey just snorted, because he didn’t know how the hell to say that he never wanted to let Ian go again and that he regretted a lot of things about his life, but his feet somehow taking him to the Gallagher house to ask Ian to leave with him, that was not one of those things. Still, he supposed it probably showed on his face if the soppy look that Ian gave him was anything to do by.

“We should be in New York by tomorrow,” Ian commented, glancing out the window and then looking back at Mickey with a half-smile on his face, “Any clue what we gonna do when we get there?”

Mickey shrugged his shoulders, because he didn’t want to admit just how much he’d maybe thought of this as he was driving whilst Ian was asleep. “Find somewhere cheap to stay,” he replied, rubbing at his bottom lip and shifting so that he could put his knees up against the dash board, “I’ll see if I can find a job and then I dunno… thought maybe you could look at online classes or some shit.” He looked away the moment that he saw Ian’s forehead start to crease in a frown. “I dunno if you can get into West Point on that shit, or if you still want to… but yeah.”

He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, nervous in a way that he hadn’t felt since they’d gotten clear of Chicago. But it was a stupid kind of nervous, because by this point Ian had to know that Mickey cared enough to think about shit like this. It wasn’t any sort of secret really.

“Would you not hate me or some shit for leaving?” Ian asked, his voice low and hesitant and Mickey just wanted to do something incredibly gay like reach out and hold the guy’s hand or something, but he didn’t. He just clenched his fist and picked at a fraying patch on his jeans. “For joining the army?”

Mickey shrugged again, not knowing whether or not Ian was even looking at him. “No,” he said, staring out the window at nothing in particular. He licked at the corner of his mouth, fidgeting, “You know I’d wait.”

And he had to. Ian _had_ to know that. There was no way by this point that it could be in question. If Ian wanted to go off and join the army, get his ass shot off on foreign soil or what the fuck ever, well then Mickey wasn’t going to be the one to stop him. And he’d still be there waiting when Ian got back.

The way that Ian suddenly grabbed at the back of his head, forcing a kiss onto Mickey’s mouth caught him by surprise and for a minute he didn’t know how to react, just sat there frozen until the insistent movement of Ian’s lips against his made his fingers curl around the curve of the redhead’s hips.

It felt too good to have Ian’s flesh, hot and naked underneath his palms, sweat-slick in that way that Mickey loved. He pressed his fingers against his skin, pulling him closer at the same time as he pressed forwards with his mouth and his tongue. Just touching and tasting and feeling.

He sucked briefly on Ian’s tongue and the redhead moaned, his fingers tangling into the back of Mickey’s hair as his thumb stroked a burning line along Mickey’s cheekbone. “How the fuck did I believe I was nothing to you?” he breathed out against Mickey’s mouth and his eyes were screwed shut when Mickey opened his own, like he was savouring this moment or something.

“Maybe I’m just a really good fucking liar,” Mickey suggested, running his thumbs down the bumps of Ian’s spine for no reason other than, he just couldn’t seem to bring himself to stop touching the guy.

Ian snorted, his eyes blinking open with a fluttering of eyelashes as a car slammed on its horn behind them. “Not really,” he said, grinning as he ducked forwards to bite and Mickey’s mouth one last time before throwing the car into gear and moving forwards at the slow crawl with the rest of the traffic.

Mickey just smirked, turning the radio back up and settling back in his seat, content to watch Ian bobbing his head along to the music once again. Because honestly, if this was what his life was going to consist of, then he didn’t care if Ian wanted to move to fucking Mars for six months of the year, he’d wait.

He’d wait forever if he had to. 


	4. Chapter 4

Ian could see Mickey out of the corner of his eye, sitting on the hood of their car with a smoke and a pot of strawberry Jell-O that they’d bought from the gas station they stopped at. He’d changed out of his jeans into a pair of grubby once-tan shorts and his vest was clinging to his chest like a second skin and the few people that they’d passed at grimaced that the sight of Mickey, but Ian just smiled. There was a part of him that just wanted to press Mickey against the hood of the car, people be damned and lick into the ex-con’s mouth.

Because Mickey had said that he’d wait for Ian. He’d said that he’d stay and he’s said I love you and Ian was waiting for that moment when he woke up and realised all of this had been a dream. They may not have a plan really for what the hell they were doing and they definitely hadn’t had one when they’d left, but all that mattered really was that they had each other. Because Mickey was enough, he’d always been enough for Ian even though other people couldn’t understand it, _wouldn’t_ understand it. He didn’t need them to.

And sure, he could see himself regretting parts of what they’d done further down the line. Leaving his family, not having a chance to explain properly or say goodbye. But he knew the thing was that he’d never do it any differently. Even before Mickey had admitted he’d loved him in one of the bluntest and most brutally honest ways that it could ever have been said, Ian had known he would have gone with Mickey anyway.

Maybe that was fucked up, but it wasn’t like either of them could be expected to be normal having been born and raised in the Southside.

People would say that they were too young to be making life changing decisions like this, but living poor and living in the Southside made you grow up fast; and this was probably the only chance they were going to have. Ian would be damned if they weren’t going to take it.

Mickey stuck his tongue out at him when their eyes met, childish and disgusting, his mouth full of half chewed up Jell-O, but all Ian could do was tip his head back as laugh even as his fingers raised the payphone’s receiver to his ear.

“Hello?”

He flinched internally at his sister’s voice. She sounded tired, stressed and a stupid part of him had almost thought that maybe they wouldn’t have noticed he was gone yet. But then he’d left a note, so that hadn’t been a serious thought really.

“Fiona?”

He’d rung because he felt like he should, because he owed his family that much, but now that he was actually speaking to them he didn’t know what to say. It was late afternoon and still as hot as balls, but Ian had known that someone would be home, possibly everyone. That was why he’d chosen then to call.

That and it fit in with them stopped for gas and food, because Mickey’s stomach had been making ridiculous noises for the last half an hour of driving that they’d done.

“Ian! Ian, oh my god where are you!” she said, practically shouting and sounding so desperate that he wanted to screw his eyes shut and throw the phone aside, but he didn’t, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

He dragged in a long, ragged breath and could feel Mickey’s concerned gaze on him, but he just kept his eyes shut and pushed a shaking hand through his hair. “Fi… I had to,” he said, choking on the words a little, choking on her name, “I can’t explain… but I had to.”

He didn’t know if she’d understand eventually. Or if she already understood. Maybe they’d found Terry Milkovich’s body already, tied the shooting to Mickey and Lip had pieced it all together. Or maybe it would just be one more thing that Fiona had been left in the dark about for her own good, maybe she would never really understand why her brother had left.

Ian didn’t know what the preferable option was.

“Ian, I don’t care, you don’t have to explain,” she said and he could practically hear the cogs in her brain turning as she tried to come up with something she could say, or maybe some sort of explanation, “Just _come home_.”

He found himself shaking his head even though she couldn’t see him. “I love you, Fi,” he told her, heard her make a horrible noise like a sob. It sounded like it had been punched out of her. “I love all of you, you know that.”

“Of course we do,” she gasped out, the words tear-choked, “And we love you… you’re our brother Ian, just come home.”

“I can’t,” he muttered, because he didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know if there was anything else he could say. He didn’t know how he was supposed to offer her any sort of comfort, because he couldn’t promise he’d call or that he’d come home eventually, he couldn’t promise her anything.

There was a pause and a crackle down the line that made Ian think for a moment that maybe he’d lost the call. “Ian, where are you? What the hell are you doing? Just come back.” But no, that was Lip, his voice making Ian’s heart falter in his chest and his fist clench at his side, because he didn’t know how to face explaining to Lip.

It had always been Lip’s approvable that had seemed to mean the most, but he wouldn’t get it for this and he _knew_ that.

“I’m fine.”

“That wasn’t what I asked, Ian,” he replied, quick, hitting back like this was some sort of tennis match and if he didn’t reply quick then everything was going to be over. That it was all going to fall apart. “Where the fuck are you?”

And that hadn’t even been a question, Lip was just shouting at him and Ian had been expecting that. He’d been waiting for the moment when Lip went straight from being desperate to being angry. He’d almost thought Fiona would too, but she’d just stayed on pleading, breaking his heart with every word.

“I can’t tell you.”

“The hell do you mean you can’t tell me?” Lip spat back, “We tell each other everything!”

That phrase, so familiar that it made him ache at the same time as it made him burn, because fucking _bullshit_ they did. Not anymore. They used to. It had used to be him and Lip against the world, but ever since Karen, ever since Mandy and Mickey, it had all slipped through the cracks and Ian found himself running to Mickey with his problems and bottling all the things involving the ex-con up inside. He didn’t know when Mickey had become his best friend as well as his fuck buddy, he wondered if Mickey had realised that.

He thought it was probably about the time that he realised that even though he pretended not to, Mickey did actually listen to him when he spoke about stuff. It was Mickey that helped him out with his ROTC and West Point training when it used to be Lip.

“Not lately, you haven’t been around to listen,” he said, and then cringed because this could be one of the last conversations they had and he didn’t want it to be like this, “Wait, I didn’t mean that, there’s just been a lot of shit going on that I didn’t tell you about.” He opened his eyes and ran a hand through his hair again, glancing over at Mickey who was watching him with a focussed, unashamed expression on his face. It was almost concern in a way. “I couldn’t.”

He didn’t know why he’d thought that Lip would stop being anything other than angry, because he didn’t, he just seemed to skim right over Ian’s words and grind out, “So you just left! Just scribbled a note and left!” And maybe that was the point, the problem.

Even when he left, Ian could never really get them to focus on the parts of the conversation he needed them to. Maybe that was selfish, but it didn’t stop him wanting it for just a moment, wanting to be the centre of attention for just a moment. And in his awkward, almost back-handed way, that was what Mickey gave him. That was one of the things that Mickey gave him.

“I had to,” he said, too calm as he finally looked away from Mickey, grinding his shoe into the dusty dirt, “But we’re fine.”

He should have known that was the wrong thing to say. “We?” Lip snarled out, “Who the fuck’s we, Ian? Who are you with?”

And so evidently they hadn’t worked it out, they hadn’t worked out what had happened and what they’d done. Not completely. Ian didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign, or if it just showed all the more, that Lip wasn’t as observant as he liked to think he was. That he hadn’t been paying as much attention to what Ian was doing as he used to.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ian said, because maybe it did and maybe it didn’t, but if Lip hadn’t worked it out then he wasn’t about to tell him. He wanted there to be as long as possible before anyone worked out what had happened.

A large part of him didn’t think anyone would really care that much though. The police in the Southside weren’t the best and the chances of them trying to chase someone across the country for the murder of someone like Terry Milkovich were slim. But still, Ian wasn’t going to be taking any chances.

“You’ll work it out,” he said, because Lip would, eventually, “But we’re fine, we’re going to be fine, I promise.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, blinking quickly down at the dirt, watching it cloud around his shoes for a moment where he’d kicked it up. “I don’t think I was ever supposed to stay in the Southside,” he admitted, because he’d never quite felt like he belonged there like Lip did. Lip liked that way of life, loved it in fact; and that would be the thing that would always hold his brother back from leaving. “I think this is my out, I think this is what’s best for me.”

He thought Mickey was what was best for him, in a crazy, unconventional sort of way.

“Ian– ”

He didn’t think he had the strength to listen to whatever Lip had to say, so he just looked back at Mickey, looked back at everything that he wanted his life to contain as he said, “Tell everyone I love them.” And then he hung up on his brother, maybe for the last time, maybe not.

He didn’t know.

 

***

Mickey doesn’t say anything because he knows that Ian wouldn’t want him to. It would all just be empty words and promises anyway, because nothing is going to make it all easier. So Mickey just lights up another cigarette, tosses the empty pot of Jell-O and climbs in behind the wheel. He handed the smoke over to Gallagher after just one drag, looking away from the shake in Ian’s fingers.

The knot in his chest didn’t loosen until half an hour later when Ian shifted forwards in his seat to flip on the radio, senseless music filling the silence between them as Ian reached across and slipped his fingers through Mickey’s, squeezing tight in a way that seemed to promise that he was never going to let go. 


End file.
